When he was 23 -before he got to the School of Fine Arts- he took to making busts. Busts of G. Kaloudis, G. Lytras, and General Reppas precede that of Metropolitan Bishop and later Archbishop, Spyridonas Vlahos. That work of his marked not only its course but mainly its end. Praising him for the bust he had made, Vlahos offered him not a negligible sum of money as a fee. Vrellis refused to take the money saying: 'I do not wish to start my career with money'.